The present invention relates to a solid image-pickup device, and more particularly to a solid image-pickup device using a storage cell in which an electrical image corresponding to an original image is beforehand produced and stored in the storage cell, and then the original image is reproduced on the basis of the electrical image.
A charge coupled device (CCD) has been conventionally and widely utilized in a solid image-pickup device for forming an image on the basis of an image light incident thereto. The CCD is a device having a semiconductor array for transferring an electric charge signal generated by an incident light image in synchronism with a transfer signal.
In the CCD thus constructed, a transferring efficiency for the electric charge signal is remarkably variable in accordance with a surface level density, configuration and various operational conditions of the CCD. Therefore, a severe supervision for operational conditions is required in order to accurately converting an incident optical information into an electric signal. Further, the CCD is not capable of holding a sufficient amount of surface electrical charges, and thus it would be almost impossible for the CCD to have a storage function for conducting a work on external elements Still further, the CCD requires an intricate charge-transfer circuit for transferring the electrical charges therealong, which imposes restrictions on miniaturization of the whole construction of the CCD, so that it would be almost impossible to provide a CCD having large area and high density. In view of the above disadvantages of the conventional solid image-pickup device having a CCD, a solid image pick-up device capable of overcoming the disadvantages as described above has been demanded.